In one known prior art assembly method, a generally cylindrical piece of reinforce material, having two axially spaced filler material portions adhered thereto, is attached to the inner peripheral surface of a bead ring and thereafter wrapped or folded around the bead ring so that at least portions of the filler material adhere to adjacent faces of the bead ring, with juxtaposed portions thereof also adhering to each other and projecting angularly in a radially outward direction from the bead ring. This type of prior art construction will be discussed in more detail hereinafter.
Another prior art construction is set forth in U.S. Pat. No. 2,752,980 wherein flexible wedge-like, generally extruded, rubber strips are attached to the bead rings. When the wedge-like strips are in place, the ends of the various plies are turned up around the bead cores in a manner well known in the art. FIG. 5 of this reference also shows that rubber strips of sheet form are folded upon themselves around the bead cores to form wedge-like structures of substantially the same configuration as the extruded triangular-like strips that are generally used.
In yet another process, shown in FIGS. 3 to 8 of U.S. Pat. No. 4,196,036, a filler gum having a circular cross section is applied to the outer peripheral surface of a bead ring. The filler gum is thereafter stitched to the bead ring and partially shaped by a first stitching roller and, after being enveloped or wrapped by a reinforce or filler strip cloth, is further deformed into a generally triangular shape via second and third stitching rollers.